


Strange as What I See

by sevsgirl72



Series: Linger On [1]
Category: Midsomer Murders
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 05:11:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3369053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevsgirl72/pseuds/sevsgirl72
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of the Vicar’s suicide in “Death’s Shadow” (2x01), Gavin finds comfort and sage advice, about his feeling for his DCI, from an unlikely person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange as What I See

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Mention of a canon deaths and contextual homophobia.
> 
> Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Caroline Graham or the makers of Midsomer Murders. I’m purely borrowing the DCI and DS et al. for a little while.
> 
> A/N: This fic uses specific events from “Death’s Shadow”  
> A/N2: Title and quotes are courtesy of The Velvet Underground’s “Pale Blue Eyes”

_If I could make the world as pure and strange as what I see,_

_I'd put you in the mirror, I put in front of me._

**Chapter 1**

Gavin felt like he was was spinning in two separate directions. The movement in his head was tossing him to and fro over an angry sea. Yet, despite the noxious, red-green storm swirling behind his closed eyelids, he was laying prone on a bed. His mouth was dry and he couldn’t coerce his eyes to open. 

Nothing felt right. 

Gavin attempted to focus on figuring out where he was through the nauseating turns. The bed was definitely not his; the mattress was too lumpy and a spring, or two, were digging into his hip at a painful angle. He shifting away from them took effort, and his fingers dug into the mattress forcing away rising nausea. His body ached and his head throbbed. This was the worst hangover he’d had since his force graduation. Offending light could just be seen through his closed eyes. It was morning. 

Morning meant work.

He was going to be late if he didn’t get up. Gavin couldn’t stand the thought of seeing the disappointment on his governor's face if he were late. Barnaby would be tetchy all day with subtle jibs here and there. The DCI’s opinion of him had come to mean far more than Gavin would willingly admit. Each time he did something right, came to the right conclusion, found the right clue, he would find himself looking toward the DCI in anticipation for the “Good job, Troy”. A genuine commendation rarely came from the older man, the sarcasm came far too easily. Despite the fallout from being made fun of, Gavin kept doing stupid things; forgetting to fill the car up with gas, stating the obvious, leaping to conclusions. 

They were all things Gavin knew he could improve on, but he felt like he wasn’t changing fast enough for his DCI. The fear that he might be transferred had begun slipping into his mind with increasing regularity. He didn’t want to leave. Not now. They were beginning to really know each other’s habits and ethos. Gavin was settled for the first time in his life: he enjoyed being a part of the DCI’s life. If he was asked to leave - the thought was too unbearable, especially on this type of morning.

Bracing himself with two hands Gavin managed to turn on his side.

“Finally. I need to get to work.”

Gavin’s eyes burst open at the voice. He blinked at the man, waiting for the other’s presence in the room to catch up with his understanding. 

Charles Jennings.

The man was leaning on the window sill, a cup of tea wrapped in his long thin fingers. His intense watchful gaze resting on Gavin. Charles Jennings who only yesterday was caught  _ doing it  _ with Ian Eastman. A blinding nausea struck him down, back to the bed. Gavin groaned gutturally. He wasn’t sure if it was due to the boozing he’d had the night before, or that he just woke up in another man’s, no a bloody bum-boy’s, bed, but his stomach roiled fiercely and a scorching shame welled from within. What would the DCI say?

“We didn’t do anything.” Charles said spitefully. After having spent the night holding the sergeant as he broke down it was suddenly hard to hate Troy, but Charles could easily imagine what was going through the his head at the moment.  When Charles had first seen Gavin from across the church yard, the man cut quite an image. Tall, with a awkward gait, well dressed, but with a horrid taste in ties. Charles had paused in his work and imagined the things he could do with such a man, what he wanted to do with a man like that. Then reality came crashing in.

The sergeant and his boss had to find him with that oaf Eastman, and Gavin had so quickly and openly shown his disgust. Charles had legged it out of the house as quick as possible without a word to either of the detectives. He was of age, nothing need come of it. It was a shame really, the young detective was easy on the eyes. Charles hadn’t expected to see the man in Badger’s Drift again, so he couldn’t help but be curious when the man walked into the pub later the next day and do his best to drown himself in pints. Charles had heard what happened of course, it was all over the village in moments once the first siren was heard.

After their initial meetings and the long night they had Charles grasped at the opportunity to watch the sergeant sleep. He’d now seen two sides to the man, the bigoted snotty one, and this other one, so completely removed from what he was during their previous encounters. This other side was unsure of himself, full of self loathing, and rife with turmoil after having failed to stop the Vicar from leaping off the church tower. Charles may be young, but he had lived enough, seen and done enough, to find that, at times, that the more verbally vicious homophobic were mostly terrified of their own feelings. He’d listened to a handful of men pour out their troubles, fantasies and secrets. The sergeant had had little problem when drunk to take comfort in the arms of another man.

Gavin was different from most, though. He had a charming naivety that made Charles question his own past. He wondered if he’d ever been like that. The poor man was so tense with what others would think, what his boss would think of him if he were something other than straight and macho. He probably balked at any thought of what he assumed sex, especially gay sex, was, aside from schoolboy jokes and obscene reference, or had to be that he couldn’t even begin to think through how he really felt. Laying in bed, asleep, Charles could see the man he held last night, the one he was suddenly rather fond of, but awake, he thought that perhaps he’d be exposed to the other side again. Instead, the detective just blushed and covered his face with his hands. 

Gavin wanted to get up and run, but his body was still rebelling at the idea of moving. Instead, he lay there trying to recall how he got to this bed and what exactly had happened. Stephen. The Vicar. Gavin could see the man climbing over the railing of the church tower again. He could hear his pathetic attempt to order him not to jump. And the calm, almost laughing, ‘Of course I’m going to jump’. Then the Vicar was gone.

If only he hadn’t stopped at the door and continue his full on rush toward the vicar he could have grabbed him. He only ran to the railing after the vicar hit the ground. The memory of that sound alone made his stomach flip again. Gavin could only vaguely remember taking the long winding stairs back to the ground. The DCI met him at the door of the church, told him to wait for SOCO and the ME, but Gavin had only a perfunctory understanding of the order. While Tom was talking he collapsed with his back against the wall of the church.  He lay his hands against the cool stone trying to stave off the sickening heat rising through his body. Gavin couldn’t even comprehend the structure keeping him upright, how it stretched into the sky above his head and how very far the vicar had fallen. It made his knees quiver.

Gavin knew that he nodded at the DCI, agreeing with the orders, and he watched the DCI walk toward his daughter and wife. Watched him envelope them both in his arms for comfort on the walk back to the car. Gavin knew that Tom had to leave. He had to take care of his family and no doubt poor Joyce was going to be traumatized once again. And Gavin knew that there was nothing else they really need to do for the case except the clean up. The Vicar made his choices. He had lived with them, and died with them. Gavin couldn’t help but see the connections clearly now after Tom had explained about the eulogy given only a couple of days before. 

Of course, Barnaby had caught on much sooner and Gavin could only see it in the aftermath. He’d never been a church going man, but it had been unnerving to hear such a blatant and unremorseful confession from the vicar. But, to not act quick enough to save him, to fail at preventing death and stopping short the cogs of the law, Gavin felt it a failure. No, he was a failure. Gavin failed and the DCI wasn’t just walking toward his family, but was walking away from his Sergeant. He must be disgusted with Gavin for not doing his job.

The SOCO team were professionals, and though Gavin had had a difficult time leaving the stabilizing wall he collapsed against, they went about their work efficiently while he oversaw. The next day would be all about the paperwork. While a messy conclusion, it was a conclusion. The Vicar’s confession and subsequent suicide cut short all the loose ends. Even with such a finale, there was still much to do and Gavin’s thoughts raced at the idea of having to go back to Causton and his empty, lonely flat for the evening. He headed straight to the village pub after the body was sent away. He needed a pint. No, he need pints. Plural.

Gavin then could remember sitting at the pub. Every time he closed his eyes all he could see were those seconds it took for the vicar to hit the ground. The helplessness made him dizzy with a vengeful vertigo that called for another pint. He should have been faster. The DCI would be tetchy for weeks after this, disappointed that his Sergeant couldn’t keep the old vicar, the murderer, from jumping. Then he remembered leaving the pub, attempting to totter his way down the street. He didn’t even know where he would have been going. The next thing he vaguely remembered was Jennings, there at his elbow, taking a hold of him and leading him to his own flat above the local store.

There was a soft caress at his face, and dark intense eyes urging answers to questions out of him. Gavin had told Jennings everything. About the case, about Eastman and the others allowing a young boy, their friend, to die. About his DCI and how fucking lonely his life had been before joining CID. Gavin had told the man too much. 

Gavin couldn’t take Charles’ watchful gaze any longer and, moving against the nausea he felt, he left swiftly without another word. It was all too abhorrent, Gavin reassured himself on the drive back to Causton, spending the night with a man. Even though he could piece together that nothing sexual had happened, the fact that Jennings hands had been on him. Gavin shuddered.

He was drunk, it meant nothing.

***

“Are you alright, Troy?” Tom questioned when the Gavin strolled slowly into CID a few minutes late and looking a tad worse for wear. Though, after a shower and a couple of acetaminophen he was feeling better than he had at the crime scene yesterday.

  
“Ah, yes, fine sir.” And Gavin got down to work frantically. Trying to keep the moments of the previous night out of his mind.


End file.
